'A' teams playing each other at Leicester today, with Jaidev Unadkat taking seven wickets on first-class debut. Yet another left-arm seamer, India do seem to produce a lot of them.

He is an interesting one. He was dropped during the U19 World Cup but returned in the latter games. He came on first change and impressed, not with figures, but with a bit of zip and bounce that he had. He bowled at around 135kph, which is quite good for U19 cricket, and hit the bat hard and was played like someone who was bowling quickly. He then played for KKR in the IPL and did okay, but looked average. Will be interesting to see how he is actually bowling (obvs not that badly) atm.

Last edited by Manee; 11-06-2010 at 08:45 AM.

The speed at which a fielding team gets through the innings is overrated.

He is an interesting one. He was dropped during the U19 World Cup but returned in the latter games. He came on first change and impressed, not with figures, but with a bit of zip and bounce that he had. He bowled at around 135kph, which is quite good for U19 cricket, and hit the bat hard and was played like someone who was bowling quickly. He then played for KKR in the IPL and did okay, but looked average. Will be interesting to see how he is actually bowling (obvs not that badly) atm.

He used to be very good though, It is usually assumed that a young bowler will improve with age, or at least, not lose every natural asset he once had. Alas, with India, such decline tends to be the common reality.

They might turn out to be Hicks or Ramprakashs, but it is worth the effort trying them out rather than falling back on Yuvraj time and again, or worse accomodate Murali Vijay in the middle order etc.. They toyed with Gambhir like this, he should've ideally debuted when we were struggling to find anyone to open with Sehwag, like Chopra, Bangar etc.

None of them out have any vision. It's limited to the next bloody IPL at best.

What has Kohli and Raina done except making tonloads of runs against SL or mediocre opposition on airport runways in ODIs and T20s?

Kohli and Raina both had strong First Class seasons in the past two years. Remember, that they started FC cricket when they were very young. Yuvraj Singh is not past his peak, but the bulk of his career, at the top of his game, has been spent with the ODI team, not inflating the FC average. The averages of Rahane and co are brilliant, but you must put them into perspective. The pitches are flat, the pace bowlers often slow and runs easy to come by. A 'good' average in an Indian domestic season is a lot higher than, say, in an English season and so this must be taken into account. However, this is still not to say we don't have a plethora of batting talent.